The life of a brand founder is never a cakewalk—many brands don’t last very long. For the entrepreneurs who perservere, passion for the business keeps them in the game. Nigerian-born Aminah Sagoe, a financial analyst turned beauty brand founder, has faced innumerable setbacks in the six years since she initially launched Emmaus as a prestige, targeted body care line to treat the keratosis pilaris, a skin condition she suffers from. Sagoe pushed through those setbacks, including being swindled by consultants and, now, she’s diving into skincare for the neck up. “I feel like I have a calling and, when I wasn’t doing anything [in skincare], I didn’t like myself,” she says. Sagoe spoke frankly with Beauty Independent about costly partnerships that didn’t pan out, a plethora of business pivots, and why she chose to forge ahead with her brand even in the face of crushing disappointments.
Tell us about launching Emmaus and bumps you hit early on.
My formulation was completed in 2014. From when the products were ready, I started doing a lot of research [on the best way to launch the company]. People were saying you have to have a PR company help you. There was a brand with the same formulator as us. The formulator was telling me that this brand had just started out, and they were going really, really big. This is the formulator talking. Of course, he’s going to say they have good products, but he said I should go do some research and find out who do they use for PR. I did find out, it’s a small company. I called them and told them what I’m trying to do, and I’d like them to work with me. They had said they couldn’t. They referred me to somebody else. I thought that, since they’re the ones referring me, then it must be a good person.
This young lady just moved to New York from France, and she had this very tiny PR company, which wasn’t a problem because I’m small as well. I told her everything I was trying to do, and she said it would be a perfect fit. She promised me the whole world. She would help with getting the website ready. She would oversee everything. Back then, she had said that her fee was going to be $3,000 a month for six months. I was trying to launch in December of 2014. It’s a lot of money, but wanted to do this thing right. I just felt this was the professional way to go about it.
I signed her contract for $3,000 a month. She got me a company that built the website. They did a terrific job on the website. I was pretty much going with everything that she was telling me to do because I was looking at her like she is the expert and because of the people that referred her to me. They were successful, I wanted to be successful, too.
After about three months, I said, “Where am I going to sell the products?” She said that’s something she could do as well. Then, she’d have to up her fee to $7,000 a month. What that would get me is that, as soon as my products were ready, she was going to be able to get them in stores. I said, “Really, you can do that?” She said yes. Foolish, naive me. I discussed it with my husband, and he was like $7,000 is crazy. That’s too much. I’m like, “Yeah, but let’s look at the bigger picture. That means that, come December, the products will already be in stores.” That’s how I started paying $7,000 every month.
We did it for about three months and, then, I’m like, “Where are the stores?” She said, “What stores are we talking about here?” That was when I realized that, “Oh my goodness, this lady has just been taking my money.” She has no plans for putting me in any stores because obviously that’s not something that’s in her power. There was a lot of back and forth and, eventually, she said she would refund the money. I think she asked for my banking details. That was the last time I heard from her.
Did you delay the launch?
At this point, I had my products. We’ve spent so much money, and there’s nowhere to put them. I’m originally from Nigeria, born and raised. I moved here about 25 years ago. I said maybe what I need to do is I need to go launch in Nigeria. I have way more contacts in Nigeria. Over there, most people have small businesses. So, you may have a friend that owns a store or a friend’s friend that owns a store. At least some of these stores can carry my products, and I can try to recoup some money.
That’s what I did. In March 2015, I had the launch in Nigeria. I had a big party, and we had bloggers and celebrities come. It’s much easier in Nigeria. It’s not like over here. I was able to stock the products in stores over there. After that, I came back here because this is still where I want to do business. I live here. Nigeria is one of those places that you really have to be there for it to work. My kids are here. Ideally, this is where I want to do my business. I started selling here on my website. I started contacting bloggers to review my products, the usual steps that you take.
In 2015, there was this contest going on with Virgin Atlantic. They sent an email to their customers that, if you fly premium economy for business, send a tweet saying how premium economy has helped you. They were trying to promote premium economy. I fly Virgin Atlantic when I go to Nigeria, so I tweeted and said that it was during my flight flying premium economy that I wrote my speech for my launch party. I won the contest. I was very excited. They did an interview with me. I went to Manhattan to go shoot it. They had my picture and the brand on a billboard in Manhattan right by the World Trade Center. There was a lot of publicity about it. I was very excited thinking, “This is what I need. This is the push.” But it honestly didn’t translate to anything. Another bummer.
I thought the PR company that represented Virgin for the contest is an actual company. They’re working with Virgin. Maybe I should give them a try and do three months with them. PR companies are not supposed to promise you anything. They obviously didn’t promise me anything, but I thought I’d try. Maybe something will come out of it. Nothing came out of it, and that was another $10,000 a month for three months. The one thing that came out of it was I got an interview on Huffington Post. That was it. I was like, “Oh my goodness, what am I doing wrong?”
There are two PR companies have gotten me results: Osei PR, owned by Nikki Osei- Barrett here in the States, and Glam Brand Agency owned by Bola Balogun and based in Nigeria. Bola organized the launch party in Nigeria and invited all the major celebs. She sent products to all the major influencers and, in turn, they posted about the products, and she got me into all the major magazines and publications.
What did you do next?
After that, I said, “Let me get onto Amazon,” which I did. Amazon is huge in terms of products. How am I going to get people to notice we’re there? I found this company with a man who said he’s an Amazon expert. He was $2,000 a month. I thought let me do this thing for three months and see. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I did, and it seemed like things were picking up. I was getting orders, but I didn’t know what he was doing. He wasn’t doing anything bad, but [I was getting sales] because of the ads he was placing. He was running a lot of sponsored ads. At the end of the day, what I sold didn’t cover the cost of the ads. I paid him all this money, but he wasn’t bringing any expertise to the table. I could have done the ads on my own.
The ad fees were on top of the $2,000 a month?
[The ad fees were] separate and on top of his fee of $2,000. At this point, I said, “I can’t anymore. There’s no more money. That’s it.” I didn’t quit quit. I was posting on social media, but I’m like, what are all these things we’re even posting? What’s coming out of it?I got frustrated. I was done for a while. Then, I felt like I’m not happy the way I am. Doing skincare makes me happy. It makes me feel fulfilled.
Did you decide to pivot then?
People don’t mind spending $500 on their face, but spending $60 on a bottle of body lotion was another thing. It wasn’t really moving as much as it should have. My core customers [for the body care products] are people that have keratosis pilaris. I started the body line because I have KP. I was addressing own needs, and I knew a lot of other people have it as well. [The products were] expensive for them, but they get the job done. Also, the percentage of people that have KP is not really that much. That’s when I said, “I’ll make products for the face.” But, now, I said, “Let me look into face since everybody wants to spend all their money on their face.” So, I’m starting again, and I’m not going to any PR people. I’m just going to do it myself. If it takes me 20 years, so be it.
Do you have plans to bring back the body care range?
It’s on hold for now.
Your face care range formulas are clean, but not organic. Why did you choose to go that route?
I try to keep it as natural as possible. I don’t do organic because the whole process for it to be considered organic is just too much. Also, when we’re trying to get rid of dark spots or acne, you do need some kind of oomph in the formula. [When I first launched the brand], I told myself that you’re going to have to pick a side because, to be in that clean organic environment, it’s like a cult. So, you have to choose. Do you want to do politics at work or do you want to do organic? Everybody’s organic, so I’m trying get away from that. That’s why the ingredients are as natural as possible, but I’m not trying to claim all-natural. That’s not what I’m selling. I’m selling the results, the effectiveness.
Where are your products sold?
I really just started all of this in the last month, so on the website. I’m doing social media, sponsored ads on Instagram and Facebook, spending about $100 a week. Then, I’m also looking for bloggers to do reviews, but everybody charges an arm and a leg. One I contacted wanted $5,000. It’s crazy. The platforms where you can look for influencers to do reviews also charge a lot, a monthly fee plus all the free product that you have to supply.
What retailers would you want your products to be in?
It’s crazy now that everybody seems to be closing down physical stores. Before you wanted to be in a Neiman Marcus or Barneys for prestige, but it’s not about that anymore. I think it would probably be online retailers that are popular like Dermstore. I’m on Amazon, but it’s always a hassle, so many hoops you have to jump through to get everything straight with them. Amazon is like it’s its own universe. What works in the regular world might not work in their world. So, I want to go educate myself about the sponsored ads and how all of it works. What’s more effective? How much should I be spending on keywords?
How has it been being a Black brand founder during this time?
I posted my picture today [on Instagram]. In the past, I’ve always shied away from that because, when people know that it’s a Black person behind a brand, they won’t buy it, especially my Nigerian people. Once they know that this thing is made by a fellow Nigerian, they look the other way. They just seem to equate quality and good with white. It’s really unfortunate. So, I always stayed in the background. I didn’t want anybody to know who the owner was. It was actually the BLM movement that pushed me to say, “You know what, if you’re not going to come to me because I’m Black, then so be it, it wasn’t meant to be.” At the end of the day, you have to be true to yourself.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.